Conditions can arise where heat removal from an inaccessible location is required. While that type of heat removal can typically be achieved with a conventional heat exchanger, in some instances, electrical power may not be guaranteed or electrical motors may not tolerate the environment as were encountered at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plants in Japan as a result of a Tsunami. Due to contamination of an area from hazardous material or radiation, access to such areas is not always possible and a mechanism for removal of inventory from such a location is not always readily feasible. In such cases, integral, remote heat removal equipment that does not require electrical power at the hazardous site and does not require local human intervention is beneficial.
An example of such a condition, though unlikely, is a severe accident at a nuclear plant site resulting in damage within the reactor containment building in which the primary system of the reactor is breached and the nuclear fuel is severely damaged. In such a case, highly contaminated reactor coolant and design safety injection inventory leaking from the primary system would be collected within the reactor containment building. The heat developed from the radioactive decay of the nuclear fuel material must be removed from the containment to control the pressure and temperature within the building. Traditionally designed plant heat removal systems cannot be used to cool the flooded inventory and the highly contaminated inventory associated with a severe accident cannot be circulated outside the containment building. This invention will provide a means for cooling the inventory spilled within the reactor containment building even in the event of the loss of site power, while maintaining separation between the contaminated inventory and the clean inventory used to cool the contaminated inventory and will not circulate the contaminated inventory outside the containment building.